LIVING OUR CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM: WHAT DOES OUR HISTORY AND TRADITION TEACH US?
A form of writing, called apocalyptic literature, was developed by Jewish writers as a way to bolster perseverance and hope in the midst of persecutions and devastating cataclysmic events. Christian writers borrowed this genre to help the early Christian communities face their own troubled times and persecutions and often tied the apocalyptic literary form to the second or final coming of Christ at the end of time. This, in turn, has inspired many movements and groups throughout Christian history to emphasize an end-of-the-world, Christ-is-coming-soon, ‘look at the signs of the times’ approach to their preaching. We saw it again as we came up to the year 2000 A.D. and the predictions of computer breakdowns and worldwide chaos. We see it in some Christians today who point to terrorism or the troubles in the Middle East and other wars or certain natural disasters or the exponential growth of artificial intelligence as signs of the end times. But the basic Christian attitude toward such things must be one of humble ignorance and therefore trust in God (“But of the day or the hour no one knows.” Matthew 24:36). It is simply a mistake to take the symbolic images and sayings of the Scriptures and try to turn them into literal predictions of historical events in our day or in any age.
On the other hand, such biblical texts are highly meaningful. They speak to our emotional core in an imaginative way, trying to instill in us a visceral sense of the horror that we will face, if we continue down our destructive paths. They remind us that we truly can unleash an apocalypse upon the world. We need to recognize that our actions and decisions have the potential to cause tremendous harm and chaos, to acknowledge that unless we allow our world to be shaped by the reign of God it can fall into destruction. In a stark way they put before us a clear choice, at least from the Christian perspective: either the cross of the innocent Christ leads us to let go of all violence and frees us to be a people of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation, or else we become complicit in any destructive, apocalyptic vision which unfolds.
At the same time, the biblical tradition has another strand of thought that helps to put such apocalyptic imagery into a more hopeful vision, without reducing the urgent call to follow God’s ways. That other strand of thought is the tradition of Jubilee. Jubilees place a moral obligation on God’s people (who then can be a witness for the world to do the same) to examine all the ways that our social-cultural-political-economic systems have led not to true freedom for people but have chained them in ways that keep too many people from living fully free, dignified human lives. Jubilees require a willingness to free those oppressed by debt, to give them a new start. Jubilees obligate us to forgive and not let the patterns of hurt and vengeance have power on future decisions. Jubilees call us to ‘sabbath rest,’ intentionally letting go of our frenzied pursuit of “more” whether it is money, status, fame, power, whatever—and pursuing a deeper relationship with God and with one another as greater priorities. Jubilees call us to celebrate the good that is within us and all people, to highlight the solidarity we have rather than the divisions we cause. Jubilees, then, are the flip side of apocalyptic visions. Yes, the world can be in the midst of a chaotic slide toward destruction, or, the world can embrace the spirit of Jubilee and re-energize an authentic vision of human living. Either is possible. Which will we choose?
Jubilee 2025 gives us the opportunity to once again affirm the good rather than the destructive. Proclaimed by Pope Francis as a way to invite the universal Church and the entire world to an ethical and spiritual renewal, Jubilee 2025 enables us to examine our core Christian approach to the world, to history, and to who we are as Church. The Jubilee Year invites us to intentionally become, once again, “pilgrims on the journey,” recognizing that we need to stir our spirits, let go of any lethargy, and be open to a journey of conversion, which can re-center us in what is core to the Gospel and the Tradition of the Church, rather than hanging on to the status quo or that which is not essential. To help that sense of being pilgrims, on Christmas Eve this year (2024) Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, officially inaugurating the jubilee year, which lasts until the Feast of the Epiphany in the next liturgical year (January 6, 2026). The other three major basilicas in Rome will also have their Holy Door opened, as well as doors in every cathedral of every diocese of the world, along with numerous other shrines and churches, which will be designated as official places of pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year.
For Pope Francis this celebration of Jubilee flows directly from and continues the call to be a more synodal Church, a call that Pope Francis sees rooted in and inspired by the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. What insights does our faith give us as to who we are and what we are destined for? What has been our historical experience as a Church through the centuries? Specifically, what horizons did the 20th century event the Church calls “the second Vatican Council” open up for us as we continue to move through the beginning of this third millennium? And how can these horizons lead us to become not an apocalypse-waiting Church but a Church of Jubilee, what Pope Francis has called a “Synodal Church”?
The above paragraphs are the introduction to a longer article I have written, which discusses these questions. I will attach a link to that article at the end of this blog, and I have published the full article on the website under the “Articles” tab. The kernel of this article was actually written just before Jubilee 2000, as the Church (and whole world really) geared up for the advent of the third millennium and all sorts of preparations (and celebrations) were underway. In the Archdiocese of Detroit, a group of people prepared a binder of materials to help parishes celebrate the Year 2000 in the spirit of a biblically-inspired jubilee year. These materials were also designed to encourage a wide-ranging adult formation effort across all the parishes, using the Jubilee Year to re-ignite some of the same energy that occurred in our diocese and parishes in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council thirty-five years earlier. My article attempted to give a broad overview from the perspective of Christian anthropology and ecclesiology of what the Jubilee Year might inspire within us. Full disclosure: my article never saw the light of day, as the committee decided to go in a different direction. But in my senior, “retirement” years I have been re-reading many of the talks and articles I wrote over the years for various occasions, and as I was re-reading this jubilee-inspired one, I thought it still held up fairly well in light of the intervening twenty five years and only needed a minor bit of editing and re-writing, adding especially some words which connect it to Pope Francis’ vision of a ”Synodal Church”.
Here are a few of the key points from that article. First, inspired by the stark contrast apocalyptic literature presents between God’s reign and a world of destruction, how can that help us see the urgency and the importance of our lives and the decisions we make? Ultimately there is only the choice: “Yes” or “No” to God. Secondly, do we recognize how being in a covenant with God leads to a true freedom that is deeper than freedom of choice, even though it includes taking on responsibilities and suffering for the sake of others? Thirdly, how might one briefly summarize the history of the Church’s development in a way that prepares us to understand the event the Church calls the Second Vatican Council? Finally, what are the key identity markers for the Church in light of the Second Vatican Council, which have prepared us for the third millennium of our Church’s life and how do these insights from the Council challenge us to live this next stretch of Church history in a more synodal way?
[For the article mentioned, go to the article tab or click on Jubilee 2025 article.]